This article is an extract from a whitepaper authored by Physna’s CEO, Paul Powers
For decades, CAD and PLM technology have helped companies improve design quality, shorten production cycles, spur collaboration, and increase designer productivity. But, for all the benefits these tools offer, CAD and PLM also have limitations that present challenges to engineers and manufacturers.
Two significant challenges include finding existing models saved in the PLM library and errors resulting from converting design files from one CAD system to another.
Due to these obstacles, engineers spend between 30% and 50% of their time searching for designs, correcting inaccurate design models, or creating redundant designs from more than $37,000 per engineer per year.
The inability to find (or trust) a current design in the library and CAD system conversion errors results in hundreds of hours of lost productivity, duplicated efforts, and lost revenue.
CHANGING THE WAY ENGINEERS SEARCH FOR DESIGNS
A new geometric search capability is changing the way engineers locate designs in PLM systems. CAD and PLM systems use a text-based search function to find models in the database, so unless the engineer looking for the model knows the exact text to use during their search, they may have a problem finding the source file.
Geometric search takes the guesswork out of finding designs because it doesn’t rely on file names, part numbers, or other metadata fields.
Instead, geometric search relies on the design’s physical and intrinsic attributes.
Access the full report here.
